This blog is about The Big Picture - information and insights about what goes on in the world outside our borders - and what it means for Americans. Unless otherwise specified, all photos from Deena Stryker archive.

Sunday, August 6, 2006

"WHAT WE HAVE IN MIND"

Will hubris never cease? The intention has long been clear, but to say it so brazenly, in so many words, shows the extent of the disconnect between those who run this country and the rest of the world. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Condoleeza Rice outlined "what we have in mind for Cuba" after Castro dies.

They just don't get it! For forty-seven years the Cuban people have endured the hardships that come with trying to build a country NOTWITHSTANDING A BLOCKADE precisely because they do not intend for the country that imposed the blockade to decide what is best for them.

Meanwhile, thank goodness that "The Economist " for all its (diminishing) conservative bias, is there to let us know that Obrador's supporters have been camped out in the Zocolo by the thousands, demanding a recount of the presidential election. It wasn't on the news that I watched.

The apparent togetherness of Bolton and the French UN Ambassador for the task of determining Lebanon's future is not fooling the Lebanese: they want no part of a plan in which they had no say - in what others "have in mind" for them.

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Welcome to Otherjones!

The alternative press is replete with despair and ‘hope’, neither of which is helpful. ‘Squawking’ may alleviate some of the pain Americans experience at being identified with a government that brutalizes Others at will, but it doesn’t change the ‘facts on the ground’. As for hope, it is an easy cop-out: in the present state of the world, we can never be certain that tomorrow will come. Whether a barefoot child in Africa or a hedge-fund manager, all of us are the potential victims of hubris.

This blog aims to prepare my readers in ways more important than stockpiling food and bandages for whatever happens, as we transition from an American century to a world century, helping them see through the web of lies with which we are being controlled.

Having lived for years at a time in half a dozen ‘foreign’, countries — learning their languages and histories — I have a unique ability to identify events that bear watching. That life, however, could not provide ‘retirement benefits’, so if you appreciate the unique combination of information and insight that characterizes my work, I hope you will integrate a small donation to Otherjones into your budget.

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If You Had Been Watching....

One of the worst aspects of the US media landscape is its neglect of what goes on in the rest of the world. When I returned from nineteen years of living in France, where I sometimes watched CNN’s excellent coverage of world events, I was surprised that in the US, CNN offered nothing comparable. I called the main editorial office in New York and was told ’Americans aren’t interested in foreign affairs’, revealing one one the reasons why the US government gets away with wreaking havoc around the world: Americans have no information that would prompt them to protest their county’s actions abroad.

The fact is that several countries’ governments — aside from the British — fund international television channels. These include France 24, NHK (Japan) , Al-Jazeera (Qatar) RT (Russia) and Telesur (Latin America). These channels usually broadcast in English, Spanish and Arabic, using native speakers, enabling most people in most parts of the world to hear news that their national outlets do not cover and get a broad window onto the world.

Meanwhile, Americans are told that the channel that is most significant for them, RT, is propaganda!

RT is significant not only because, like the other foreign channels it offers a wide range of programs but because it includes opinions from many well-known Americans who are barred from our own mainstream media.

From time to time I will signal significant news stories covered by these foreign channels that are absent from our own.